


The Closest Thing to Reason

by hbub1201



Series: Learn as they Go [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Based On A Picture, Fluff I guess, Honesty, M/M, More talking, Other characters mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:29:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbub1201/pseuds/hbub1201
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of a still from the new BlackBeard featurette posted on tumblr. How Billy came to be the one sat by his captains side at BlackBeard's table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Closest Thing to Reason

"You're not doing it!" Flint yelled again, frustration filling his voice but barely covering the tiredness already there.

"Why not?" Billy shouted back, just as angry, but much more determined.

Flint paced from his desk where he had been pretending to organise maps, just as an excuse to distract himself from this prolonged conversation. He walked towards the cabinet at the other side of his quarters, only to pick up a book he had no interest in reading and stomp back over to his desk. Billy rolled his eyes but let the captain have his fake distraction, folding his arms and not moving from his spot in the middle of the room.

"Because I need you on the Beach!" He shouted like it was the most obvious thing in the world and need not be questioned any more.

"Bullshit!" Was the taller mans immediate, and undetered, response.

"I need my best men with me in case this discussion turns sour." Flint affirmed, still fiddling with books and papers and barely sparing a glance to the bosun stood firmly planted in his cabin like he belonged nowhere else.

"No," the younger man countered, "You have your end under control, you have Silver and Mr Scott to back you up. What you need is for me to join the rest of your men on the other beach in order to secure the next stage of your plan."

"Howell and Joji can handle it,between them they have half a brain cell, they can lead."

"No, actually they can't," Billy stated honestly, albeit sarcastically, "Those two can't even agree on which pot to piss in and there is only a choice of one. So let's suppose they get into trouble and have to think of a way out fast that doesn't leave us in the shit for later. What happens when they can't even agree on which way to run?"

Flint raised his eyebrows at his cocky looking bosun, who in turn had his own eyebrowns pinched in question. "Tell them to always run toward the sea," the captain remarked coolly, earning him a glare from the other man.

Billy through his arms out from the lock they had been in around his chest, curling his hands into fists he rubbed his forhead with his knuckles and growled at in the general direction of the man he was growing increasingly impatient with.

"You're being ridiculous!" The bosun snarled when he saw that Flint had taken his silence to mean he had relented.

"And you're being stubborn!" The captain shot back angrily, once again raising his eyes to stare Billy down.

"That's because I'm right!" 

"And yet you're still not going!" Flint shouted louder, thumping his paper filled fist onto the table and finally giving Billy his full concentration.

"Bullshit!" Billy shouted again, just as loud, taking an intimidating step toward the other man.

"This discussion is over." Flint returned, forcing down the anger and standing his ground.

The two stared toward each other, both threatening and promising, eyes alive with a conversation of there own. Billy was all but shaking with frustration, while Flint was fighting to keep his own emotions in check. Eventually Flint exhaled and dropped the papers from his hands, dropping into the seat next to his desk and running his fingers across the top of his head. Billy let his anger slip then, he exhaled slowly, calmly, and allowed the other man's obvious tiredness to draw them both away from the fight that had been brewing. He slowly walked toward the captains desk but didn't stop next the the, still tense, man, instead he carrried on his journey and slumped against one of the seats in front of the window.

"I'm a pirate," he stated all but softly, raising his arms back up to encircle his ribs. "As much so as Howell and Joji, or Silver and Scott, even as much as you."

"What are you talking about," Flint sighed slowly, already forming a guess but hoping not to have to broach this subject now.

"You can't protect me from all the dangers," Billy elaborated, just as soft as before but this time more determined, his body now angled toward the older man.

Flint breathed in and looked up to the chipped ceiling of his quarters, took a minute to count the specks of crumbling wood on the old ship he'd called home for so long. He breathed in deeply and released as he slowly dropped his head, looking passed the other man and out into the ocean beyond him.

"That's not what I'm doing." He stated quietly.

"Then why," Billy started, not raising his voice, or commanding his captain's attention away from calming blue of the sea, "Are you sacrificing our greatest chance of success in order to have me where I am not needed? Just because it's safer?"

"That's not what this is," Flint all but whispered to the deep waters.

"No?" Billy asked back calmly, fighting against his impulse to start another fight, knowing it was patience that was going to win out this battle. "Then why am I not going with my crew?"

"You're going with me," Flint declared, eyes darting quickly to lock with his bosun, "Am I not your crew?"

"You are my Captain." Billy announced back without hesitation or ulterior meaning.

"So do as I say," Flint ordered, but it was not harsh, it was not even firm, as uch a question as a statement.

"But this time you are wrong." 

Billy looked deep into his captains eyes and did not budge, his voice hardened for that last declaration and his body tensed in preparation for Flint's reaction.

"I am not wrong," was his captains reply, voice loud again with anger, "And I am not changing my mind!"

It was as if the other man had used the quiet moments and the reflection of the sea to refuel the fight within him. So quick, he was, to return to his fighting stance, he stood as he spoke and turned back to his desk with renewed vigour, plotting a course on the map for where was best to dock.

Billy, too, rose from the seat he was leaning against. He snarled at the man everyone else was afriad of and took another step toward breaching his personal space. "You don't need me!" He shouted, almost punctuating each word with a step forward.

"I always need you!" Flint shouted back before Billy had even finished his own declaration. The older man's words had the young bosun immediately stop his advance, he stood glued to the spot with his arms and fists at his side, looking at Flint with wide questioning eyes but when all he saw in his captains own face was stubborness and anger Billy shook himself free of the suprise admission and growled back.

"You need me with the others!"

"I need you with me." Flint affirmed, dropping the mask of anger now that he knew he'd already said too much. This was Billy after all, there was no longer any reason not to continue. "Jesus Christ Billy, must you make everything into a declaration," he scoffed, only half joking to bring levity back into the intensity of the room.

"Flint...?" The bosun murmered back, "James?" He looked walked to the desk, from which Flint had already moved away to lean against a near by cabinet, and propped himself up against its wooden frame. "Explain it me?"

"I don't want you in danger, yes," Flint begrudgingly explained, pushing himself briefly off of the cabinet in order to run his hands through the hair that was no longer present on his head. "And, alright, perhaps I am finding it increasingly easy to imagine sacrificing any mission or strategy in order to keep you safe..." He continued hurriedly, like he could rush the words out so fast that Billy wouldn't catch them. "But although I can feel likelihood that I'd want to, I'd never degrade you like that Billy. I know who you are and I'd never stand in the way of it, not in the least because you'd see through me, do it anyway, then I'm pretty sure you'd shoot me with my own pistol for the attempt."

Billy scoffed at the attempted levity and watched as Flint moved to stand opposite him. "So what the hell is this about?"

Another inhale/exhale then Flint rested his hands on the cabinet behind him as he prepared to exlain. "We're hanging by a thread here Billy. We cannot screw this up." He asserted.

"Which is wh-"

"I cannot screw this up!" Flint interrupted, his arm raised to cut off any more interruptions. "Blackbeard has the advantage and enough arrogance to think that it's enough. He is not fighting our war, he is starting his own. He is everything that poses a risk to what we are trying to do and yet he demands respect and admiration and it is not within me to give it to him."

Billy softened his features and dropped his arms, he stood up straight, calm but serious, "Flint you have to," he ascerted. "You don't have to mean it but you have give it, we need him to atleast not stand against us."

"I know, but I don't have that sort of mindless flattery and obedience inside me anymore," the captain explained, thinking back in internalised disgust to the blind followiing of a system that lead to Thomas' death.

"Flin-"

"You know as well as I do that I will lose my temper. I will try to hold back and grit my teeth but he will see through it and push and we will all be caught up in the consequences whilst we should be defending Nassau from England." His voice was raised again, but it was not in anger at his bosun, nor in anger of their situation. This was in anger at Blackbeard, at his ego and self-importance. This was in anger at himself for sharing those weaknesses.

"So try harder." Billy responded firmly. Not angry at Flint but not letting him give up or back down, or admit to a defeat within himself that hasn't even happened yet.

"I won't be able to Billy, don't you see that. I won't be able to control myself..." He argued back, pushing himself forward and firmly into the other man' space. "Not without you there."

Billy blinked away the sudden warmth of Flints presence, allowed his mind a little time to gather up the other mans words and process exactly what it was his captain was telling him. Finally the younger man looked down and swalled, parting his lips to push out a quiet "What?" in the hope that James Flint may have more to say before he would be called upon to form a response.

"You are the closest thing I have to a reason anymore Billy." The older man stated matter-of-factly, somehow both vulnerable and brave at the same time. "Beyond the betrayal and the hatred that has driven me this far. All the anger and the need for bloodshed and revenge... Beyond the rage... All there is now is you." Flint looked up towards Billys downturned face and the two men just breathed. So close now that they could taste the others breath. "I can do what needs to be done," Flint confirmed, "So long as I keep seeing that, seeing you. Seeing your life outside of this war. I need you by my side Billy, to remind me of not just how to fight, but why. And as long as I remember that then I will be able to play along. I will be able to smile and pretend and do everything that is required of me to flatter that bastard into whatever deal we need from him. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you Billy?"

Silence followed as Billy took a breath, opening his lips as if to speak but allowing no words to excape as he metled into the small distance still left between their two bodies. Flint looked just as affected, his eyes flitting between Billy's own glistening orbs and his still parted lips. 

Billy knew it was his turn to say something, his turn to make a move. Whatever this was between them, this thing they had not spoke about since that first time after Flint had found out about the gold being taken from him. This thing they could not discuss but could not seem to help themselves from acting on. It was Billy's turn to talk, to reassure Flint, to say what the other man needed to hear. That's what Flint was waiting for now.

"I seem to remember being unable to calm you so well with Guthrie." Was not what he'd needed to say, but apparently was all that was willing to come out.

Surprisingly Flint snorted out an honest laugh. The older man saw the vulnerability with in the tough young bosun, the need to be certain of a thing before he trusted it. The younger man needed to erase his doubts. "I didn't kill him did I?"

Billy smiled then too, a short forced smile that he dropped almost instantly as he reached his hand up to rest against the back of Flint's neck "If at your side is where you truly need me then that is where I'll always be," he whispered into the ever shrinking gap between them.

Flint bit his teeth into his lower lip and hid a quiver behind a snarl, he looked into Billy's eyes and willed the other man to close the distance. Hating himself for need his own assurances that this wasn't all just him.

"Our life," Billy whispered then.

Flint's pupils were blown wide as his iris' shot to meet Billy's. "What?" he breathed almost painfully, so desperately in need of an answer that he almost missed it when it came.

"Not my life outside of this war, but ours, my life is, afterall, entwined with yours now," the bosun smiled, real this time. And before Flint could say another word, or even think another thought, Billy pulled on his neck and finally touched their lips together. He pushed himself into the shorter man and did all he could to envelop him in a battle of lips and hands. Both men breathed around the kiss, into it even, unwilling as they were to lose the contact for even a moment. Two sets of eyes locked closed and the men scrambed for their bearings, Billy moved them both backwards until Flint was once again pressed up againts the cabinet against the wall. Once there, though, Flint spun them so that it was Billy who was pinned and the bosun did nothing to counter that but hold tighter onto the other man so he couldn't pull away, of course if the hands digging solidly into his hip and neck were any indication then Flint was planning of removing himself just yet anyway. 

Arms flew between the two bodies, pushing coats off shoulders and shirts up stomachs. Loosening belts and undoing knots. So wrapped up were they in the now familier, but no less exciting, feel of one another that they didn't hear the loud knock on the door, nor did they notice the several that followed. It was only when the knock was followed by an angry and sarcasm filled shout of "Captain, if you wouldn't mind, our Bosun has dissappeared again and we do have a fucking ship to sail..."

Flint growled has he pulled only his lips away from Billy, keeping a firm hold of the other mans body pressed firmly against his. "Then sail it, quartermaster!" He remarked back as he stared into Billy's intoxicating smile. Billy raised his eyebrows in a silent question of what now that was answer by an ever insistant knock that they both knew wasn't going away until the Captain made an appearance.

The two men reluctantly broke a part, with Flint reaching down to pick his coat up off the floor. "You are right about one thing though."

Billy snorted and gave the captain a llok that clearly stated he was right about everything, to which Flint just rolled his eyes. 

"Howell and Joji need someone to follow." Billy stated again, to which Flint nodded as he picked up some crumpled paper from his desk. Billy was back to leaning against the cabinet with hs arms folded against himself and all Flint wanted to do in that moment was wrap himself back up in the other man and forget all the shit beyond the locked door of his cabin.

"Silver will have to go with them." He decided, with no room for argument.

"He wont like that," Billy argued anyway, "And with his leg he's not very fast."

"Mr Scott then," The Captain argued back, "Or both in fact. We beed as little agenda and politics around Blackbeards table as possible."

"And if they do have to run Joji can just carry Silver," Billy remarked with a cocky smile.

"It's our best shot," the older man shot back, to which Billy had to nod his agreement.

"You're telling Silver," the bosun laughed, just as the another bang sounded on the door and Silver shouted a final cry of "Fine, I suppose I'll do it myself then!"

"You're telling the rest of the crew," The captain smirked as Billy's smile dropped, the crew still hated to be told they were being led by anyone that wasn't Billy. Flint let out another bolt of laughter before he grabbed Billy by his shirt and yanked him forward into a brutal kiss. Well, considering the interruption had gone and they were obviously not needed anymore, neither man saw any reason why they shouldn't finish what they had started.


End file.
